With just a year to go until the 2012 Olympic Games in London, an ambitious project to produce the first Canadian Olympic marathoners in a decade has been scaled back.

The Brooks Canada Marathon Project has stopped operating as a club. Also, the house where the athletes lived in Toronto has been put up for sale.

“One of the things that we found is that there are just not enough people who want to just concentrate on the marathon,” said the club’s co- founder, Mike Dyon. “I was a bit surprised. Even in the sport itself, more people are tending toward the half marathon.”

Dyon started the club in 2007 with his brother, Paul. The brothers own a company that distributes Brooks shoes in Canada. They invested $1.5 million in the project.

The club’s aim was to get Canadian marathoners to qualify for the 2012 Olympics. A Canadian hasn’t run in the Olympic marathon since the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia.

Duncan Larkin

Duncan Larkin is a freelance journalist and author who’s been covering the sport of running for over a decade. He’s run 2:32 in the marathon and won the Himalayan 100-Mile Stage Race in 2007. He wrote the book RUN SIMPLE, and coaches runners of all abilities.
You can learn more about him here: http://roadsmillslaps.tumblr.com/about